


Advanced Maintenance

by VelkynKarma



Series: A Little Bit of Maintenance [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Injury, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Shiro (Voltron)-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-01 12:17:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11486223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelkynKarma/pseuds/VelkynKarma
Summary: Maintaining an alien prosthetic limb can be difficult even with help from your friends. Fortunately, Shiro's able to get a little extra assistance from a few unexpected places.





	1. Size

**Author's Note:**

> I've been getting Routine Maintenance style prompts from ~~butteredonions~~ some people on tumblr and thought I'd collect them separately! The paladins and Alteans aren't the only ones who can help Shiro out with that arm of his, it seems :)
> 
> Although it's technically part of the same universe as Routine Maintenance, you can probably read all of these stand-alone, too.

Shiro scowls at his prosthetic, thoroughly fed up with it.  
  
It’s been bothering him all morning, ever since his morning solo session against the Gladiator. He’d blocked a strike from the robot using his arm, and with some extremely bad luck, the robot’s staff had managed to catch him just beneath the connection point and right on one of the prosthetic’s panels.  
  
At the time it hadn’t felt like much. He’d been wearing his armor, and while getting hit so close to the point where metal met flesh always stung, he’s gotten used to that brand of pain by now. He’d finished his training session, showered, and moved on with his day without thinking twice about it.  
  
But he’d started to notice an odd rattling sound inside the prosthetic, and around the same time it had become less responsive. And as the hours pass, the sensation gets worse. He can’t flex his metal fingers very well at all, now, and the whole thing feels like it’s starting to get heavier. The remains of his right arm are starting to throb, and the whole experience is just downright uncomfortable.  
  
He thinks maybe something’s been shaken loose, or gotten stuck on the inside of the prosthetic, around the point where the Gladiator had hit him. And normally this wouldn’t be too much of an issue, when safely on the ship, and not in the middle of a mission. The easiest solution would simply be to go to Hunk for maintenance, just like any time it needs serious work beyond routine cleaning and care that Shiro can’t handle himself.  
  
Unfortunately for Shiro, Hunk is planet-side for the day, doing some major supplies shopping with Coran as he stocks their kitchen. And Pidge, the logical second choice for arm troubles, had also gone planet-side to get a few technological upgrades for her computer. Keith is still in the Castle, not particularly interested in the market crowds, but he’s no engineer. Shiro has no intention of making him help with this, even if Keith probably would in a heartbeat.  
  
So Shiro does what he can to deal with it himself. Hunk’s shown him some of the more useful tools he can use for his prosthetic, and given him his own set to store in his room for emergencies. Using them and Hunk’s lessons, he manages to pry open the panel on the upper half of the prosthetic. His probing fingers can _definitely_ find a few loose wires, and something that feels like it’s jammed into a gear. That probably explains the lack of mobility, or maybe it interferes with the function that lets him move such a heavy piece of equipment easier. The weight of it is starting to get painful.  
  
Unfortunately, although he’s identified the problem, _fixing_ it is something else entirely. He struggles to plug the wires back in properly, or to remove the lose bit of metal jammed into the gear. But it’s an awkward angle, trying to reach into the back of his arm at all, much less trying to fix or replace things by feel alone. He curses, but he can’t quite manage it no matter how hard he tries.  
  
A loud squeak at his foot makes him start, and he winces when he pinches one of his fingers in the metal paneling of the prosthetic. The blue mouse at his foot lets out an apologetic-sounding chittering noise.  
  
“Uh. Hi,” Shiro says, raising an eyebrow. “Did you…did you need something?”  
  
The blue mouse—Chulatt—squeaks and shakes its head ‘no.’ The yellow one, Platt, skitters up next to it and points at its mouth, then gestures to Shiro.  
  
“I…eating?” It shakes its head. “Oh, wait, I _didn’t_ eat.” He glances at the clock—it’s past lunch time. “Yeah, I’ve uh…I’ve been a little distracted.”  
  
The red and green mice have managed to crawl up on his bed to sit next to him, and stare at the arm balanced carefully in his lap. The red one, Chuchule, points at the arm and then gestures at his shoulder, before demonstrating with few massaging motions on Plachu next to it.  
  
“No, I don’t need that right now—well. Maybe later, but now it’d be sort of pointless.” Shiro shrugs one shoulder awkwardly. “I’ll just have to wait until Hunk and the others get back, I guess. This thing’s a pain to lug around when it’s not working.”  
  
The mice exchange glances, and then as one swarm up his torso, darting across his lap or shoulders to the prosthetic.  
  
“Wait, no!” Shiro hisses in alarm. Letting them help with massage therapy is one thing—he doesn’t want to explain to Allura why one of her precious mice has gotten fried or cut up or who only knows what else because it was trying to fix something only a trained engineer should be working on.  
  
He tries to cover the gaping open hole in the prosthetic with his free hand, but the mice are nimble and quick. The blue one has already slipped inside, tail whipping through Shiro’s fingers, before he can stop it. Shiro curses. “Get out here right now!”  
  
The mouse doesn’t listen. Which just figures, really.  
  
Platt crawls up on his shoulder and pats his neck in what Shiro assumes is supposed to be a reassuring way, as Chuchule and Plachu shove his fingers aside and also crawl into the prosthetic’s interior. Shiro scowls, but there’s really nothing he can do to get them out at this point. If he sticks his fingers in there to try and drag any of them out, he’s afraid he could shove them into other components that could get them hurt or killed. He’s still not sure how he’s supposed to explain this to Allura, or anybody else, for that matter.  
  
There’s a sudden loud buzzing noise and a snap, not unlike a little crackle of electricity, and the whole prosthetic seems to jerk for a moment. Then it settles, and to Shiro’s surprise, he finds he has a little more mobility in his fingers. A second buzz-snap and another sharp twitching motion, and his whole wrist flexes much better than before. He stares incredulously.  
  
Chulatt and Platt both crawl out of the interior of the arm, and Plachu sticks its head out and waves its tiny paws to Platt. The largest mouse bounds down to the opening in the arm, and its back half sticks out of the paneling as it shoves its head and front paws inside. There are several loud squeaks, and Platt’s tail wiggles back and forth as it seem to tug at something. Then there’s a sudden grinding noise, and the mouse snaps backward, falling out of the prosthetic’s open panelling with a squeak. Shiro barely manages to catch it in his left hand, and blinks when he spots the metal shard in the mouse’s teeth. The arm, to his surprise, feels lighter again, and he realizes the mice had pulled something out of the gears to let it function properly once more.  
  
Plachu crawls out of the prosthetic’s interior and up Shiro’s shoulder as well, looking smugly satisfied. Shiro sets Platt down on his lap, and probes carefully inside the arm with his fingers. The loose wires that had been there earlier aren’t loose anymore, and must have been plugged back into their original ports. He’s careful not to venture too close to the whirring gears, but everything seems alright inside, as far as he can tell.  
  
“Uh…good job,” Shiro says, impressed, as he glances at the mice arrayed around him. He carefully closes the panel, and flexes his arm experimentally again. Good as new. “Thanks.”  
  
The mice squeak, clearly pleased with themselves. Platt has a more immediate interest, and gestures at its mouth again.  
  
Shiro laughs. “Okay, okay! I’m guessing nobody’s fed you, if everyone but Keith is planet side. Fine, let’s go get a late lunch. But I’m warning you, it’s just going to be food goo. I can’t do anything fancy, okay?”  
  
The mice don’t seem to mind. They crawl up onto his shoulders for a ride, and Shiro heads for the kitchen, flexing his fingers again now that he can once more. He’ll have Hunk look it over again later just to be safe, but in the meantime, this isn’t so bad at all.


	2. Still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second Routine Maintenance style prompt I got over on tumblr (although I've got a funny feeling there will be more in my future). Enjoy!

Shiro glares down at his prosthetic with a mix of frustration and exasperation. He tries to lift his hand, concentrating hard.  
  
Just like before, it doesn’t move, or react in any way. It’s cold, dead and completely lifeless in its sling, and any attempt to wiggle his fingers or make a fist result in absolutely nothing happening.   
  
“I’m really, _really_ sorry, Shiro,” Hunk says, and he does look very apologetic, shoulders around his ears and fists clutched in front of him. “I didn’t realize that EMP bomb on the Galra ships would affect your arm, too…”  
  
“It’s fine, Hunk,” Shiro says, waving the apology away with his left hand. “We took down those warships. The bomb you and Pidge rigged let us stop them from escaping and we were able to rescue a lot of prisoners. It was worth it, even with a few minor mishaps.”  
  
Pidge doesn’t look happy. “ ‘Minor’ mishaps? Your arm doesn’t work at all! And I think we made our weapon a little _too_ good. It’s not supposed to be un-doable.”  
  
“We’ll figure it out!” Hunk promises hastily. “It might just take us a day or two to reverse the process. But we’ll totally get your arm working again, I swear.”   
  
“I trust you,” Shiro says. He really _hopes_ they can fix it, anyway. With his prosthetic dead in the water, he’s sort of useless in combat, and piloting is significantly more difficult. Plus, with his arm dead like this, it’s _heavy_. Hunk fashioned him a specialized sling first thing in order to disperse the brunt of the weight of all that metal, when the mechanisms that compensated for the arm’s own weight were disabled from the attack. But even so, having the arm strapped in front of him is not exactly comfortable. He’d prefer if he could remove it entirely. But since it’s permanently grafted to flesh and bone, it’s literal dead weight that makes it much harder to move, balance, and do anything requiring any degree of finesse or coordination.  
  
“Well you can’t fight like that,” Keith says practically. “Maybe you should just take it easy for the next day or two, until Hunk and Pidge get it fixed.”  
  
“Maybe we should _all_ take it easy for the next day or two,” Lance chimes in hopefully. “To support our leader in his time of need, y’know?”  
  
Shiro shakes his head in fond exasperation. “Pidge and Hunk can get to work on reverse-engineering their weapon’s results,” he says, “but Lance and Keith, you two should still do some  of the combat training we had planned for today.” He sighs. “I suppose I can’t spar, but I can still coach.”   
  
Lance looks a little put out, but shakes his head. “Nah. You know I _hate_ to agree with Keith, but he’s right…you really should just take it easy for a bit. That thing looks heavy.” He grins and straightens up, puffing out his chest a little. “I can totally kick Keith’s ass without your coaching.”  
  
Keith gives Shiro a flat look over Lance’s shoulder, and Shiro can read the exasperation in it easily. “Go easy on each other,” he says neutrally instead. “I can still take part in the—“  
  
“Shiro,” Hunk says in exasperation, “Just take it easy. _Please._ I’m gonna feel bad enough as it is knowing I killed your arm without _also_ knowing I’m the reason for straining the rest of you, too. Please?” Next to him, Pidge nods in agreement.  
  
Well. When they put it _that_ way. “Alright, fine,” Shiro says. “No training. For now. But try to find a way to fix this thing as soon as you can. I’m not sure we can form Voltron like this if I can’t pilot correctly.”   
  
“Will do!” Pidge promises. “Hunk, I think we need to focus on the data from the weapon we made first, and see if there’s any loopholes to exploit. If we can find something we can maybe try to apply it to Shiro’s arm…” They wander out of sight, already heading for the workshops.  
  
And so begins the longest three quintents of Shiro’s life, mostly because he’s never really realized just how badly he misses his right arm—even a prosthetic version—until he can’t use it anymore. He’s trained himself to use some basic things with his left hand, but even so eating or picking up objects is an awkward and uncoordinated affair with just one arm to work with. Anything at all that requires dexterity—like typing, getting dressed, taking a shower, and a hundred other seemingly minor tasks he’s taken for granted—are suddenly a lot more complicated and in some cases border on impossible. It takes him forever to get anything done, even with the paladins helping with certain tasks where they can.  
  
But worse still, even beyond the difficulties of performing even mundane tasks, Shiro’s _bored_. He’s always been the kind of person who needs to be doing something. Even sitting still, he always has this need to try and be productive somehow.   
  
There’s plenty to do on the Castle of Lions as a paladin—training, piloting practice in the Lions, developing combat scenarios and strategies, reloading and distributing supplies, Lion and Castle maintenance, and of course missions. Shiro’s never had trouble staying busy in the past—in fact, there’s usually not enough vargas in a quintent to get done all the things they need to. But they’re all significantly less viable when one only has one arm. Only halfway through the first quintent, Shiro is practically dying for something to do. Not to mention he inevitably feels guilty for not doing anything at all productive when the rest of the team is working hard in one way or another. There’s no way he can justify watching a movie or playing a game when the others are pushing themselves.  
  
Coran takes pity on him and gives him a few chores to help out with around the Castle of Lions. They’re simpler things that don’t really require much technical knowledge—there’s no way Shiro could really be of use recharging and repairing Altean systems. But he can do some cleaning tasks relatively well with one hand, once Coran gives him proper instruction.  
  
Which is how he finds himself carefully wiping down the cryo-pods some vargas later. It’s a little tricky to do with one hand, but both aren’t _essential_. It might take a little longer but at least he’s sort of feeling useful.   
  
He’s _almost_ finished with the first one, reaching awkwardly into the crevices of the first pod as best as he can with his metal arm slung annoyingly in the way, when he hears someone screech, “ _What_ are you _doing?_ ”   
  
The yell makes him startle. He bangs his head on the interior of the cryo-pod, and again on the cleaning tool when he automatically raises his left hand to his head while he’s still holding it. The awkward jump nearly overbalances him when his heavy, dead prosthetic and its sling sways to the right, and nearly takes the rest of him with it, but he manages to recover his balance.  
  
Then he groans internally _and_ out loud, because he’d know that voice absolutely anywhere.   
  
Slav is, for some inexplicable reason, still with them _long_ after the defeat of Zarkon and their subsequent new missions to break up the Galra Empire throughout the galaxy. Once they’d found Shiro again Allura had asked, with a rictus smile and painfully forced friendly tone, if Slav would like to be dropped off anywhere after the mission—his home planet, say, or perhaps another location he was more fond of? But Slav had merely shrugged, and never gotten around to answering the question, and no one had ever quite been able to get rid of him since. Perhaps his one saving grace besides his genius intellect, and the reason anyone was able to put up with him at all, was his rather reclusive nature. He would generally keep to himself, and was usually only seen at mealtimes, or when an occasional need for something to be rearranged or adjusted for statistical purposes came about.   
  
Of course, it’s just Shiro’s bad luck that he happens to be here when Slav arrives.  
  
Slav scrambles up next to Shiro quickly, gesturing wildly with his topmost set of arms while he zips forward. “You can’t clean a cryogenic regeneration chamber like _that!_ ” the scientist yells. “Don’t you know _anything?_ There’s a fourteen and three sixteenths percent chance you will get the next person to use the pod _killed_ if you do it like _that!_ ”   
  
Shiro sets his jaw, and fights hard to keep his eye tic from coming back. Of _all_ the things he’s dealing with at the moment, Shiro certainly does _not_ want to add Slav to the list. Unfortunately, it seems he has no choice. Slav is absolutely focused when he gets like this, and the only way to get him off of one’s case is to humor him as fast as possible, in Shiro’s experience. “What am I doing wrong,” he says more than asks, voice flat.   
  
_“Everything!”_ Slav yelps. Shiro doubts that—Coran had given him a through explanation on how to do this—but Slav is already rambling on. “Your technique is completely wrong! You aren’t getting all the most important parts! You must clean each piece exactly _three_ times to ensure full decontamination! You aren’t putting enough pressure into each cleaning motion! Why aren’t you using your robot arm for this? It’s so much stronger!”  
  
Shiro glances down at his prosthetic, still in its sling, and over at Slav. “Robot arm isn’t working at the moment,” he admits grudgingly. “You’re stuck with my left hand, so that’s just going to have to make do.”  
  
Slav seems temporarily distracted from his cleaning woes by this new piece of information. “Not working?” he asks, fascinated. “But it is such an excellent piece of technology! Never mind—I can fix it.” He surges forward, reaching out with several sets of hands.  
  
“Hey!” Shiro awkwardly twists aside, and bats away a hand (and then a second, and a third) before Slav can actually touch his prosthetic. He snaps angrily, “Leave it alone! _Don’t_ touch my arm.”  
  
“But I can fix it!” Slav says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. “I can even make improvements to it—“  
  
 _“No,”_ Shiro says, warning in his tone, as he glares at the alien. He thinks back to Slav’s ‘improvements’ on the massive teludav, and the fire he’d started after banging on it with a rock, and shudders. With Shiro’s string of luck recently, Slav would turn his entire arm into a bomb. “Don’t touch it. Leave it alone.”   
  
Slav fidgets in place, clearly not happy with this order. “You should have another robot arm,” he says after a moment. “Then your left side would not be as weak.”   
  
“If I had another robot arm they _both_ wouldn’t be working right now,” Shiro snaps, “and my left one works just _fine_ as is.”   
  
Slav blinks at this, seemingly ignorant of Shiro’s irritated tone. After a moment, he says, “You are still not cleaning this right, though.”  
  
Shiro groans.  
  
“It is very important to use the proper technique!” Slav adds, gesturing again. “Improper cleaning will leave behind dangerous bacteria and infection and _bodily fluids_ that can severely damage the next occupant! In fifteen and three-sevenths percent of all worlds it could lead to severe life-threatening injury or even _death!”_ He shudders.  
  
“The last person in there was Hunk, and it was only because he was a little sick,” Shiro says in exasperation.  
  
 _“Then you know for certain this cryogentic regeneration pod is contaminated!”_ Slav says, horrified. “The possibility of spreading the disease is twenty point five seven three six percent with improper cleaning!”  
  
“I’m sure it’s not that bad—“ Shiro starts, but he’s not allowed to finish. With more nimbleness and speed than anyone tends to give him credit for, Slav swarms up onto Shiro’s shoulders, wrapping his tail neatly around Shiro’s waist to hold on. Shiro curses as he nearly overbalances—Slav normally isn’t that heavy, but Shiro also doesn’t normally have to contend with the full dead weight of his prosthetic as well. Shiro wishes, not for the first time, that Slav would learn some concept of ‘personal space.’ “Hey! Watch what you’re doing—“  
  
Slav ignores him, and snatches the cleaning tool out of Shiro’s hand. “Since your robot arm isn’t working and you are currently incapable of doing this properly, _I_ will take care of it,” Slav says.   
  
Shiro raises an eyebrow at this. Slav has never been one to selflessly volunteer for anything—despite himself, this is actually sort of intriguing.  
  
“After all, if you cannot clean this properly, the chances that I might contract some terrible alien disease in the future are at six and three-tenths percent,” Slav adds, as he leans forward and begins viciously scrubbing the pod.  
  
Ah. Never mind, then.  
  
Still, despite his less than noble reasons for helping, Slav _is_ sort of helpful at this job. Being almost entirely spine, he’s capable of contorting into some impressive shapes in order to reach every part of the pod, inside and out. With Shiro to boost him, he can reach the tops of each machine just fine, and scrubs with precise vigor as he mutters about numbers and percentages under his breath. And, irritating as he is, Shiro can’t help but note the pods are impressively shiny by the time Slav is done with them.  
  
It means he has to endure being directed all over the place, usually with Slav tugging his head this way and that, or pointing with his many hands to order, “That way next! This pod offers the next most statistically likely chance to end in severe death or illness!” It leaves Shiro’s eye twitching, but at least he’s sort of being productive.  
  
And if nothing else, he’s keeping Slav out from underfoot everyone else. So. There’s that, he supposes. Definitely taking one for the team.  
  
Boy, are they going to owe him.   
  
By the time the pods are finished, Shiro is more than ready to be rid of Slav. Unfortunately, once the cleaning tool is finally put away and all the pods have retracted into their holding chambers, Slav still remains curled around his shoulders and across his chest like a living bandolier. “We’re done,” Shiro informs him.  
  
“I am aware,” Slav says brightly. He doesn’t get down.  
  
“You can get off now,” Shiro adds, with barely-contained impatience.  
  
“I could, but I will not,” Slav agrees.   
  
Shiro’s eye twitches. “Any particular reason?”   
  
Slav twists around enough on one shoulder in order to look Shiro in the eye, and says in a slow, ‘lecturing-the-idiot’ tone, “Your robot arm is not working. You have only one arm. I have many arms. Mathematically speaking, I should remain with you.” And then, under his breath, “What a ridiculous evolutionary feature. Why handicap the whole species with only _two_ arms? It’s statistically _asking_ for an entire species to decline!”  
  
“Slav. Really. I’ll be fine.”  
  
“You couldn’t even clean cryogenic regeneration pods correctly,” Slav says, throwing up two of his hands. “Statistically speaking, with only one arm you are at a severe disadvantage! Your chances of survival drop twenty-eight point six three three three two percent! And if _your_ survival chances drop, mine do as well! But statistically speaking, if you have more arms, your chances _improve_ , even if they _aren’t_ robot arms. Although,” he adds contemplatively, “with more robot arms, your chances in most alternate realities increase by thirty five and three-eighths percent—“  
  
“Slav,” Shiro interrupts the rambling, hissing through his teeth, “We are _in the Castle_. There is no fighting going on. I’m not going out on a mission. There is nothing in here that is going to kill me. My survival chances are _fine_. I appreciate your… _concern_ —“ (in a very, very roundabout way) “—but I’ll be fine without you. I _promise._ ”  
  
“You don’t know that!” Slav says wildly. “In thirteen and a half percent of all realities there could be an explosion, and you cannot free yourself with only one arm! In fifteen percent of all realities this ship is invaded by space pirates and you cannot fight! In five point five seven six percent of realities there is a malfunction in the Castle system and it tries to kill us all—“  
  
(Shiro very carefully says nothing about the incident with the crystal and Alfor’s AI, but has to admit the percentage is _awful_ low for something that actually happened).  
  
“—or in seven point six percent of realities you slip and fall into the pool and _drown_ because you can’t _swim_ with only one arm—“  
  
“You couldn’t save me even if you were there!” Shiro protests. “You don’t know if you can swim either!”  
  
“But I could provide assistance by getting help!” Slav counters. “And then there is a six point five seven two percent chance you will survive that scenario in most realities!”  
  
Shiro groans. Slav takes another deep breath to continue, and Shiro cuts him off. “Fine! Okay, fine! You can stay. Just…just stop talking. And don’t lean on my right shoulder as much.”  
  
Slav, apparently satisfied, rearranges himself on Shiro’s shoulders a little better and settles in for a long stay. Shiro, with a long suffering sigh that Slav doesn’t appear to notice at all, does the same.  
  
In the end, Slav accompanies him for the rest of the day, throughout most of the other chores Coran left for Shiro. These include basic review and maintenance on the transport pods (Slav rearranges most of the controls for ‘better efficiency’), taking inventory of supplies (Slav rearranges everything in accordance with temporal space-time fissures), and helping with some laundry (it takes nearly a full quintent to get down to the laundering room when they have to circumvent three floors with cracked tiling that Slav flatly refuses to let them travel).   
  
By the end Shiro is just about ready to lock Slav in a closet just to be rid of him. Unfortunately Slav is as nimble as a ferret and difficult to catch hold of even on a good day with both arms, and his grip is a bit like a python when he’s securely wrapped around someone and doesn’t feel like going anywhere. It would be more trouble than it’s worth to try and dislodge him. So Shiro troops up to dinner with the scientist wrapped around his shoulders and over his chest. Slav rambles on about probabilities with seemingly no realization that Shiro’s not even listening.  
  
“ _Please_ tell me you’ve found an answer,” Shiro groans at the dining table, giving Hunk and Pidge an exhausted, pleading look.  
  
Pidge looks sympathetic, and eyes Slav, still draped over Shiro’s shoulders, with exasperation. Hunk also seems sympathetic, and winces when he speaks. “Not quite. We’re getting closer, but the emissions that shut down the Galra tech _and_ your arm are really strong. Normal EMP emissions wear off after a while, but we designed this one to be relatively permanent and Galra specific. Sorry, Shiro. I think we’re close, but it might be another—”  
  
“Oh, is _that_ all?” Slav interrupts, sounding bored. He sticks a finger one one hand absently in his ear, and then adds, “That is a very easy solution! And here I thought your robot arm was permanently damaged. I was very concerned for it.”  
  
He doesn’t volunteer anything further, and doesn’t seem to notice Pidge’s and Hunk’s incredulous stares. After a moment, Shiro prompts, “Okay…and the solution is…?”  
  
“Oh! You want it _now?_ In _this_ reality?” Slav asks.  
  
“Yes,” Shiro says, barely restraining himself from yelling.   
  
Slav shrugs, and launches into a rapid-fire explanation that goes far over Shiro’s head. Hunk’s and Pidge’s eyes light up at Slav’s explanation, though, and after a moment Pidge says, “That…actually might work! That’s genius.”  
  
“I know,” Slav says. He does not actually sound like he’s bragging, impressively enough—merely acknowledging a truth.   
  
“We can get to work on that right away,” Hunk adds brightly. “Right after dinner. We should have you up and running again by bedtime, Shiro.”  
  
“Thank goodness,” Shiro says, relieved. “Thanks for the help, Slav.” Although internally Shiro is kicking himself. Three quintents like this, and Slav had the answer all along! “You can get down, now.”   
  
“Why?” Slav asks with a blink.  
  
“Because we have a solution. No more bad robot arm. I’ll be fine. It’ll be fixed tonight.”  
  
“But it isn’t fixed _yet_ ,” Slav says. “No, your statistically likelihood for survival is still very low. I will remain to ensure your survival until your robot arm is fixed, so that my own survival is also ensured.”  
  
Shiro groans. It’s going to be a _long_ evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slav is my favorite thing about season 2. Hands down. All 8 of them.


End file.
